Summer time

Usually when summer comes along, my will to create art becomes rather dormant. I honestly don’t know why. My sisters notice this too, and they mention on more than one occasion that my predicament is especially unfortunate since the sole purpose of majoring in Studio art is to prepare me for a freelance artist career (or something along those lines). Summer break naturally gives me the opportunity to create artwork on my own terms, but I don’t.

This summer, I believe I’ve found a solution. Since I always concern myself with the future senior thesis exhibition, I’ve decided to practice creating a concentration of works. My subject choice relates to female artists of years past. In the Renaissance, women artists were scarce. But at some point, fathers were encouraged to slightly educated their daughters in the arts (but not too much, otherwise their heads would explode). Let’s take Italian painter, Sofonisba Anguissola, for instance.

(Self Portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola)

She was born into a a family of seven children, which is great since that’s really all she was allowed to draw or paint. But that’s how she learned. She studied her family members, depicted them in paints and drawings, and-as a side note- also corresponded with Michelangelo, who gave her tips on the “correct way” to depict the human body or a human face. Supposedly, he was actually impressed with Sofonisba’s technique, which is saying a great deal since Michelangelo is known for suffering some sort of female phobia (google Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici and ask yourself if those things are breasts).

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to do a concentration where I complete studies and paintings of my family members. I think that this will be a great way to practice for my senior art show, and developing a series of works. I can already foresee my biggest challenge with this project. My family will never freely volunteer. Which means I’ll need to find a creative way to either persuade them to model or just not tell them and draw them anyway…without them figuring it out.